Some World Cup reflections

That's it. No more World Cup until June 6, 2014. I've been lax in updating my blog, as always, but here's a few end-of-tournament reflections. Some are personal, some technical, some political, some ethical. Thanks in advance for reading, if you do. :)

South Africa was a great host country

Quite thankfully, apartheid and racial unity weren't slapped in our faces with every single day or game. There was a good balance of sending a good message (the "say no to racism" banner was displayed prominently later on) and not let the beautiful feelings take over the Beautiful Game, so to speak. Stadiums were always full and people were always civilized, which is more than could be said for Germany in 2006. The organization was nearly flawless and (that which matters most) people had fun. It's a tribute to the South Africans that they showed so much love to and for the game even after their team had been knocked out so prematurely. I've no doubt that Brazil 2014 will be a month-long party of epic scale, though I wonder what will happen if Brazil (as is likely) will perform unsatisfactorily. Last time that happened, people died. But that was the 1950s...

The host country had never been knocked out at the group stage

...not even in Switzerland 1954! That's saying something. Perhaps South Africa didn't "deserve" to leave so soon, but the concept of desert in sports (and especially in football) is complex. Some say that it matters not what you deserve, but only what you do; more on this below. The bafana bafana were a fun team with decent skill and good strength. But they were tactically naive, felt the hefty weight of a continent's expectations, and were also betrayed by the underwhelming performance of their only international star, Pienaar. It must also be said that Uruguay and Mexico were both in a state of grace and dominated the group...

Holders and runners-up had never been knocked out at the group stage together

It happened before that the holders went out in the first stage: in 2002, for example, defending champions France lost two out of three games and never scored a goal. This time France did score, but their game was embarrassing, though not nearly as much as their internal debacle and locker-room drama. The French federation is bound to undergo substantial change in the next three years and many of these old players will never wear the jersey again. After the golden decade of French football (1996-2006), the Bleus will need to start from scratch. As will Italy, who did just as badly. No team can draw with New Zealand and Slovakia and still expect to defend a World Cup title. Here too we have a disgraceful policy of under-utilizing the most promising youth and relying instead on the old senators, and here too the policy didn't pay off. New generation and new cycle now with Prandelli, hopefully in time for Euro 2012.

What still puzzles me is why Marcello Lippi decided to coach the national team again after his 2006 victory. There's a saying in Italy: "there are 56 million coaches," which is to say that when the Azzurri play, everybody and his brother thinks he can do better than the current coach. And that's not just a saying, either. You would be much surprised to hear the shit that even highly successful winners get everyday from unsatisfied "fans," and the shit just piles on higher than ever when it comes to the national team. With this in mind, it's surprising Italy has won as many World Cups as it did! Every one you win is worth at least two, internally anyway. So why would Lippi, who had managed to leave a victor, laureled head and all, surprisingly hailed by all as the new Bearzot (winner in 1982, practically a legend)... do it all again with virtually no chance of a repeat? Why not quit a hero? Some say money, but I think it's just that he wanted to prove to even those few but vociferous detractors that 2006 wasn't an accident. Well, he failed. Of course he did. I just hope that 30 years down the road we do remember him as the new Bearzot. After all, Bearzot too failed his second World Cup.

The most mature teams made it to the final

It doesn't matter who you rooted for: if you don't realize that Spain and the Netherlands were the most deserving teams in this World Cup, you don't understand modern football. Notice I didn't say "best" teams, for "best" is an evolving concept in this sport. Both teams imposed their game, as all great teams do. Unlike Netherlands, Spain did so actively, carrying the ball, sometimes in a stultifying repetition of tiqui-taca (small passes, slow and progressive advance, and then sudden accelerations and penetrations). Both teams were incredibly talented, full of great stars and famous names, and yet there were nearly no primadonnas. They're like workers' unions, like bee hives, where everybody's on the same wage and obeys coach's orders like divine commands. Surely enough, those who couldn't live with this--Torres and Van Persie, respectively--were quite disappointing. Like it or not, this is football today. Being spectacular doesn't get you anywhere. You win World Cups with maturity, patience, and a lot of slow, meticulous hard work. However, this also means that...

...football is no longer an art

This is the other side of the coin. Football has become a science and no longer a game. To some extent, it always was. To the occasional observer, games are won and lost almost by accident, or by individual exploits, but that's seldom the case. Football has always been founded on tactics and teamwork. And yet, this tendency has been exacerbated lately. Stefano Benzi, a prominent Italian sports reporter, complains that football just isn't fun anymore. What matters today, he claims, is to win and not to play well, and that's annoying. I agree, but only to an extent. The technical-tactical maturity that I praised in the previous paragraph is one way in which the Beautiful Game can be played, one of the many great things about it. Football isn't any less enjoyable, for me, when teams take few risks and few goals are scored. Take the final, for example. It was an ugly game by many standards, but it was very enjoyable by others. It was a tactical standoff and an extremely tense, very highly charged war of nerves. I had a lot of fun. On the other hand, it's true that the most memorable teams lately have been losers, not winners: the Netherlands in 2000, South Korea in 2002, Italy in 2004, and Germany in 2006 and 2010. So I remain torn about this.

FIFA has no more excuses: something must change

Seldom we've seen such poor refereeing as in this edition. From Coulibaly to Rosetti, refs have wreaked much havoc and decided the fate of many a team. Here we must deal with two extreme schools of thought, both wrong, as extremes often are. The conservative school, that of FIFA and its evil secretary from hell Blatter, says that human error is part of the game and we must learn to accept it no matter what. Ergo, things are fine just the way they are and, if anything, refs just need to do better. By contrast, the "revolutionary" opposition says that we must do all that we can to eradicate error as much as possible, until every single possibility of error has been stomped out and the game is perfectly fair to all involved.

The conservatives are wrong. If technology exists to reduce the incidence of error, it is very stupid to not adopt it. To "learn to live" with error is only a virtue insofar as the error has been reduced as much as possible. The revolutionaries are also wrong, though. Football is played by humans, which means that error will be there to some extent. It is naive to expect perfection. The happy medium, of course, is to learn (for once) from other sports and give the refs a hand. The game has become too fast and too emotionally (and financially) charged to let these four guys go about their job almost entirely unassisted.

Coaching is a mysterious art

Spain's Del Bosque and Uruguay's Tabarez have a lot of trophies and history under their belts. The Dutch's Van Marwijk and the Germans' Loew, though, never accomplished anything significant before. How have teams with such significant coaching history achieved pretty much the same in this World Cup? Part of the answer is obvious: even a great coach no more guarantees victory than a master chef guarantees a great cake. You must have all the right ingredients, the right conditions, the right timing, and luck.

All the major stars disappointed

Seriously. Rooney sucked: no goals, no game. Same for Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi played well but no goals and only two assists. Kaka was at his worst. And of course, some other greats were out injured (Ferdinand, Ballack) and yet others had suffered too much from recent injuries to play well (Drogba, Torres, Pirlo). To be fair, both Robben and Sneijder played a stellar tourney, as did Klose. And also to be fair, all of this isn't exactly unusual. Many teams find their "World Cup" man after a game or two, it's nearly always unpredictable who it's going to be, and it's rarely one of the hyped superstars. Just think of Italy's Schillaci and Grosso in 1990 and 2006. There isn't really much to be gleaned from this; just that it often happens.

Germany is the most fun national team since the 1970s

I don't root for anyone after Italy goes out, but I really liked Germany this year and was sorry to see them go. Spain deserved to win and they're an old favorite of mine, but the Germans played some of most exciting football I've seen in decades. After Klinsmann's departure, his vice Loew kept a foot in many shoes as he rebuilt the team around its most famous mainstays. This year's Germany was a masterpiece of locker-room management. Take a bunch of kids with less than 10 (yes, ten!) caps in the national team (some, like lead scorer Muller, even signed their first pro deal this year) whose average age is 24 years, the third-youngest in the tournament and the country's youngest ever. Half of these are second-generation immigrants, so you build a multi-ethnic, fresh, exciting environment full of talented youth who just love to play ball. You surround said youth with experienced players the likes of Klose, Podolski, and Schweinsteiger, who've been there before and have competed at high level for most of their lives. What you get, if you're a good psychologist (because that's what coaches are), is a killer team where everybody works hard, nobody slacks, and there's so much talent it hurts the eye.

No, it doesn't hurt. At all. Germany was a pleasure to see, and some of these players will be a pleasure to watch this coming season too. Ozil just saw his price tag rise from 15 to 35 millions during the World Cup. That's fully justified, too, as he's by far the best young attacking midfielder I've seen since De Rossi and Gerrard were his age. Much the same can be said for Muller, Khedira, and Kroos. This will be a side to reckon with in four years' time, but more than that, if things go smooth these will be the names to make headlines in the coming club season. I for one can't wait.

Uruguay-Ghana raises ethical issues

Some have wondered why Uruguay's Suarez was booed in the third-place final. Here's what happened. In the quarterfinals, Suarez blocked Gyan's (Ghana) shot with his hands on the goal line at the last minute of extra time. It was fully deliberate, with the intention of preventing the goal that would have sent Ghana to the semifinals. A handball on the goal line is always punished with a red card, and (of course) a penalty kick is given. Suarez didn't even protest. Gyan then took the penalty--and incredibly missed it. The game went to the penalty shootout and Uruguay won.

It's fairly clear to all that the rules were enforced properly, but some feel that Suarez "cheated" and robbed Ghana of a win. No doubt his foul did just that, but now consider this. First, the point of Suarez's handball was precisely that, a trade-off: red card and penalty instead of a goal. From a tactical standpoint, it's a sound move: you trade a sure goal for the (meager) possibility of a missed penalty, and you pay that "purchase" with a red card. It's sort of like a sacrifice fly in baseball, though with a much stronger impact on the game, especially at the time that it happened.

Can a sound tactic be morally wrong, or even just unfair or unsportsmanlike? The laws of the game lay out precise rules for punishment when that or other sound tactics are adopted. For example, if you're at midfield and your team is about to take a counterattack, to foul the ball-holder to allow your team to recuperate is always considered a "well-spent" foul. If ever there's a time to spend your yellow card, that is it. All sports have similar tactics, and an accurate use of rule-breaking can mean a win. Now, whoever plays the game subscribes to its laws, and Suarez, who decided to break them, was punished to the fullest extent of the laws. Yes, Ghana can claim the punishment doesn't fit the crime and that Uruguay gained more by breaking the laws than by following them; but that's only because Ghana missed the penalty (more on this below).

If anything, one could say that when a player intentionally blocks a shot on the goal line in such a fashion and at such a pivotal moment of such an important game, the goal should be allowed anyway--but that kind of rule is both contrary to other laws of the game (no goal that hasn't been made can be given) and, more crucially, so specific that it's nearly impossible to apply and enforce. When is it intentional? Was it really on the goal line or a few feet ahead? Would the ball have gone in for sure? Just when is a game important enough? And so on. If Suarez's case fulfills all of these it's only because the rule would be made to fit them, ad hoc. In the end, my answer is that yes, Suarez's conduct was unfair to Ghana, but not to the game. Suarez "robbed" them only insofar as he deliberately broke the laws of the game in full expectation and acceptance of the proper punishment. Such unfair solutions are a possibility that the game cannot rule out.

There are others, too. When a player is down, the other team usually kicks the ball out of play so that he may receive help and his team won't be at a numerical disadvantage (notice that this is never an issue in other sports). This behavior has received much criticism lately, for two reasons. For one, some players fake being down when their team is in danger, hoping the ball will be kicked out. Also, players now expect the ball to be kicked out, and when it's not, some sort of riot typically ensues. But is it unsportsmanlike to keep playing while your opponents are a man down? I think this is a typical supererogatory duty: it's very nice of you and even morally commendable if you suspend play, but you're not under an obligation to do so and you can't be called a cheater if you don't (just like when you're playing against a far inferior team it's very nice of you not to win 30-0, but you're not a bad person if you do). Likewise, I think it would have been "nice" for Suarez not to block that ball, or for the goalkeeper Muslera to let the subsequent penalty in to make up for it, but I don't feel that Uruguay can be called cheaters for following the laws of the game.

Once again, to break the laws and take the consequence for it is still playing according to the laws.

South Africa 2010 was my sixth World Cup

The first was Italy 1990. I was 9. I learned to accept defeat more or less gracefully the evening Italy lost the semifinal to Argentina on penalty shootout. At USA 1994 I fell down on my family's country house terrace (hitting my head) when Baggio missed the penalty that lost us the final. Might that be when I became insane? As for France 1998, it was the third defeat on penalties in a row for Italy and I missed the final: it was my mom's birthday and we had to go out. Bah! I only remember bits and pieces of Japan-Korea 2002, and Rivaldo's faking in the semifinal made me hate Brazil from that day forward. Of course, I remember everything from Germany 2006. Italy won, and deservedly, but it was an exciting WC apart from that. I was also alive for Spain 1982 and Mexico 1986, but far too young to remember much. Ironically, though, one of my first memories is my dad commenting Maradona's infamous "hand of God" goal in the 1986 quarters Argentina-England: he explained to me that it's called "football" because you can't play the ball with your hands, and that just seemed weird, because you could score such awesome goals with your hands!